All the positions in football

As you no doubt know, football is a team sport that's generally played with 11 players on a turf pitch. While the choice of positioning on the pitch is the responsibility of the coach or manager, the positions themselves don't really change.

Whether you play in a 4-4-2, 4-3-3, or 3-5-2 formation, the basics are still essentially the same for the goalkeeper, the defenders, the midfielders and the forwards. There are several team formations depending on your manager's chosen tactics.

Back in the 70s and 80s, players had their own precise position and a strictly defined role, such as Michel Platini, who played on the French team from 1973 to 1987. 
The defender only worried about defending, while the attackers only worried about scoring goals. Nowadays, defenders tend to be more offensively minded and, similarly, the forwards are also thinking about defence.
In this article, we're going to analyse the different positions on a football team and see which qualities are required for each of them.

Do you have good technical skills, like to see the game in front of you and pass the ball to your team-mates? Then maybe you're made to be a midfielder like Diego Maradona!
A midfielder must be able to see the whole game play out, whether they're on the left, right or centre of the pitch. Their roles can include both moving the ball up the pitch and getting involved in defensive play. They also have to be able to set up the offensive players and switch back and forth between defence and offence. We've all experienced a match where our midfielder was out of their depth and the team was cut in half. 
In this type of situation, you quickly realise that it's so much harder to set up your game without a strong midfielder. A good midfielder needs to be equally good at retaining and regaining possession, which can be a vital part of building an attack. Sometimes, keeping the ball a few extra seconds can give the team the time to get back on track. Finally, this position requires an excellent fitness level because midfielders must stay fully engaged at all times.

A good full-back needs to be a good defender above all! Too often, we focus on the offence full-backs offer rather than their defence. But in modern football, full-backs need to be versatile and step in to handle whatever comes their way. They have to have the same skills as a centre-back.
Full-backs that can play in the centre are an important weapon in any team's arsenal. This position also requires incredible endurance, sweeping back and forth across the pitch for a whole 90 minutes. And not everyone has the skills to anticipate where the attack will come from for different set plays!
Do you have these skills? You could shine as a full-back!

A football manager, often called the head coach, is the person responsible for leading a football club or a national team.
But what makes a good football manager? What is their job? How do you become a good football manager?
In this piece, we'll give you some tips and other handy info that we've co-written with our partner Vestiaires Dirigeant.

There are a lot of technical skills to master when you play football and we're going to show them to you in a series of videos. They include scoring a goal, heading the ball, passing to a team-mate, dribbling, controlling the ball, taking a throw-in, defending, and playing the ball out from goal. They'll come in handy if you're a seasoned player and they'll be absolutely vital if you're just starting to play the game.